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Winter
2018
Grains
West
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per cent or 70 per cent below normal
rainfall—the worst drought in about 15
years—but we still had pretty darn good
crops. That emphasized the importance
of stored water.”
The key to maintaining good soil,
he emphasized, is to have something
growing in it as much as possible.
Nowhere in North America has this
mantra been adopted with more
enthusiasm than in the American
Midwest, where cover cropping has
received substantial government
support. Where the U.S. crop sector
once adopted no-till practices pioneered
in Alberta, this is where the influence in
soil health practices returns north.
Minus the subsidization, greater
attention to crop rotation and
experimentation with cover cropping
is happening in Canada. University of
Guelph agronomist Bill Deen works
with the Midwest Cover Crops Council,
an organization that represents the
corn- and soybean-producing region
of the American Midwest and its sister
region in Ontario. “If you look at the
U.S. and Canada, our situations are
similar, and the interest in soil health
and cover crops is similar,” said Deen.
“To an extent, that’s motivated by
farmers out of need. We’re both
pushing higher yields than we used to
and dealing with more extreme weather
events. Farmers that are constantly in a
poor rotation of corn-soybean, they’re
starting to recognize that trying to get
these higher yields with poor soil health
is limiting us.”
Deen cites long-term rotation trials
done at the University of Guelph that
demonstrate the addition of wheat
to corn-soybean rotation can boost
corn yield by around five per cent and
soybeans by up to 14 per cent. He
also suggested the rotation effect has
been underestimated given that it has
produced even higher gains in recent
drought years. “For the same reason,
cover crops are starting to resonate,”
he said. “My sense is that interest at
the environmental level and agronomic
level is translating into research
activity,” he said.
In Western Canada, where no-till is
standard practice and crop rotation is
employed to various degrees, the uptake
of cover cropping is slower given the
shorter growing season. Though the
crop mix is different, Deen suggested
that the challenges and potential rewards
of adopting soil health practices are
similar for Ontario and the Prairies. “How
do you get a third crop or a fourth crop
into the system? That’s the million-dollar
question.” Additionally, cover cropping
may add complexity, where simplification
of management practice is desirable,
including where farmers do not own the
land they’re working.
However, Prairie farmers are
experimenting with rotation and cover
cropping. Kirschenman, whose rich soil
so impressed Zavala, grows a range
of crops that includes durum wheat,
rye, flax, triticale, canola, sunflowers
and corn. Kirschenman said his interest
in soil health has been primarily
economic—to reduce inputs without
decline in yield or net profit. He was
particularly impressed by the results
he’d seen on a trip to the Dakota Lakes
Research Farm in South Dakota, which
he emphasized is a money-making
venture in a climate area similar to that
of southern Alberta. The farm and those
of its board members have been no-till
for the better part of three decades and
grow diverse rotations.
He compares crop diversity to the
reduced tillage movement, which was
quickly implemented once its value
was recognized. “Sometimes we want
to see research projects over and over
again until we really believe it works,”
said Kirschenman. He suggested that
the benefits are now known to the point
where these practices can be put in
place even if the research has not been
completed.
Kirschenman’s commitment to soil
health is substantial and he continues
to adjust his cropping practices. “We
have reduced or eliminated tillage,”
he said. “All our seeding is done with
a disc drill into previous crop residues.
There is no seedbed prep at all on our
farm. We have a stripper header that we
use for harvesting flax and cereals.” He
also used this to harvest canola for the
first time in 2017, with good results. The
Yamily Zavala (left) and field technician Karen Raynard visit a CARA regional wheat variety trial in Acadia Valley.
Photo:YamilyZavala